Prefatory Note
The following chapters, first issued in the Christian Friend and Instructor, have been carefully revised; an Introduction has been written, and a few notes added where any additional light has been received through subsequent consideration and study of the Scriptures. They are now commended to the Lord, from whom alone came the ability to write them, for His blessing, and to the careful attention of the reader. May He who closes the canon of inspiration with the announcement, “Surely I come quickly,” produce in the hearts of both reader and writer the response, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Introduction
There is a great difference, carefully marked out in the Scriptures, between the ministry of John and that of Paul and Peter. That of Paul (as stated in Colossians 14Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, 5For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; (Colossians 1:4‑5)), had a twofold character corresponding with the two headships of Christ; namely, that of the gospel which was preached in the whole creation under heaven, flowing from Christ’s preeminence in creation; and that of the church, the body of Christ, as connected with Him as its head. The ministry of Peter, on the other hand, was confined to the circumcision. While he touches on the church as a spiritual house, which was being built up of believers as living stones on Christ as the Living Stone, he yet, as guided by the Holy Spirit, views believers in the character of pilgrims on their way, with Christ risen as their living hope, to “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4-54To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:4‑5)). But John holds a different place. He does not enter into dispensations; nor, though once or twice stating the fact (as in John 13:11Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13:1); John 14:1-31Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:1‑3); John 17:2424Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24); John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17)), does he take the saint, nor even the Lord Himself, up to heaven. Jesus, for him, is a Divine Person, the Word made flesh manifesting God and His Father, eternal life come down to earth. In addition to this, another kind of ministry was committed to him, even if at the moment mysteriously, by the Lord after His resurrection, in the words addressed to Peter concerning John, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” (John 21:2222Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. (John 21:22)). For there can scarcely be a question that the book of Revelation is the fulfillment of the mission for which he was thus designated.
It may be said, moreover, that a closer examination reveals an intimate connection between the last two chapters of his gospel and the Apocalypse. In John 20, in addition to the setting forth of the assembly as gathered with Christ Himself in the midst, there is the conversion of the Jewish remnant of a later day, typified by Thomas who believed when he saw. (See Zech. 12:10-1310And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. 11In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. 12And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; 13The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; (Zechariah 12:10‑13).) John 2110Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 11Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. 12Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. 13Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. (John 21:10‑13) gives the gathering in of the nations in the millennium, shown in figure by the disciples letting down their net on the right side of the ship, at the command of the risen Christ, and not being able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. There are therefore three epochs in these chapters: that of the church, that of the conversion of the Jewish remnant which will take place at the Lord’s appearing, and that of the ingathering of the nations after the kingdom has been established in power. The book of Revelation contains these three epochs presented in a special way after the vision of the Son of Man recorded in Revelation 110I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 11Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. 12And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; 13And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. (Revelation 1:10‑13), together with the events in heaven and the judgments upon earth, which are connected with and precede the appearing of Christ as the rightful Heir to take His power, to make good in government all that God is, as revealed in relation to the earth, and to reign until all enemies are put under His feet. The eternal state, in all its beauty and perfection, closes the subject of the book—that wondrous scene wherein God is all in all.
The Special Place of the Church
The reader will be the better prepared to study the book intelligently, if the special aspect in which the church is presented in it is considered. It was Paul’s mission to unfold the truth of the church as the body of Christ and as the habitation of God through the Spirit. (See for example Ephesians 2 and 3, in addition to Colssians 1 already cited.) “But John’s ministerial testimony, as to the assembly views it as the outward assembly on earth in its state of decay—Christ judging this—and the true assembly, the capital city and seat of God’s government over the world, at the end, but in glory and grace. It is an abode, and where God dwells and the Lamb” (Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, J. N. Darby, 5:492-3). In a word, the church as seen by John (Rev. 1-3) occupies a candlestick position, and is thus regarded as God’s light-bearer, His responsible witness in the world. It is in this character that the church is subject to judgment and rejection, as recorded in Revelation 2 and 3.
This may be a little more fully explained. Before Christianity, Judaism with Jerusalem as its expression in the kingdom was God’s candlestick, and this was symbolized by the seven-branched candlestick in the tabernacle and the temple. The prophet could therefore say to Israel, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 43:1010Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. (Isaiah 43:10)); for they, and they only, were set as a testimony in the world to what God was as revealed to Israel. As the candlestick which God Himself had set up and lighted, Jerusalem was subject to judgment, and finally was publicly rejected. And there were four stages in this process of judgment and rejection. At the end of Matthew 2310Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. (Matthew 23:10) the Lord passed sentence upon it, in the words, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:38-3938Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. (Matthew 23:38‑39)); and the following verse tells us that He “went out, and departed from the temple.” The cross, in the next place, demonstrated that the Jews had rejected their God. The chief priests said, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:1515But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. (John 19:15)). Still the long-suffering of God lingered; and the apostle Peter urged repentance on the nation, that their sins might be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing might come from the presence of the Lord, and that Jesus Christ might be sent back to them (Acts 315And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. (Acts 3:15)). This new dealing of God with His people continued until Stephen; and then the nation rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit, even as they had that of Christ. It was now all over with the Jewish nation; and yet it was more than thirty years after this before God publicly, and in the face of the whole world, removed His candlestick by the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the “judicial end of Jewish history.” And the point to be observed is this: that the responsibility of Jerusalem, as God’s candlestick, remained until she was judicially and publicly removed. As another has said: “Jerusalem was the seat of God’s testimony. His candlestick had been there. I need not insist amongst Christians that the light and the presence of God were spiritually dwelling in the midst of Christians. Nevertheless, Jerusalem’s responsibility and her position before the world only ceased in her destruction by the judgment of God. After this, God’s candlestick, in a terrestrial sense, was in the professing church. Till then, Christians had been, to the eye of the world, a sect of the Jews” (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 5).